Desoldering systems are used in the electronics industry to repair and refurbish electrical components. For example, desoldering systems may be used to remove solder that secures an electrical component to a circuit board. In these uses, it is preferable to not only melt the solder to allow removal of the electrical component but to also remove the solder so that a new electrical component can be more easily put in place and then secured via soldering to the circuit board. Accordingly, desoldering systems that include both a heating element and a vacuum nozzle to remove the liquefied solder are in use in the industry. A drawback of the present desoldering systems is that they are subject to clogging which requires frequent cleaning and corresponding downtime from the reworking or repair processes. Clogging often occurs in the desoldering tool at the nozzle or in a filter, and at the desoldering control system and source of an applied vacuum. A user becomes aware of the clog in the system when the solder is not being removed. To clear the clog from the system, the user generally needs to disassemble a number of components to identify the location of the clog and take remedial action.
Presently, there are soldering/desoldering tools that have a sleep mode function which include a vibration sensor in the soldering/desoldering tool. However, the vibration sensor could fail to determine a small shock and turn in to sleep mode when the tool is in use, or wake up by sensing a shock to a work bench when the tool is not in use. Other types of tools include a sensor which monitors the temperature drop of the tool. Monitoring the temperature could fail to determine use of the tool with very small load to the solder tip or desolder nozzle.
The present invention is primarily directed to minimizing the occurrences of clogging and expedite the cleaning process by identifying the location of the clog for the user. The sleep mode of the present invention is configured to resolve the limitations of the prior art designs.